Wednesday, March 20, 2013

Yglesias Contra Brooks

Long story short, I would say the CPC budget has the following main advantages over the Ryan budget:

More food and medical care for poor children.

Less air pollution and a meaningful chance to avert the worst consequences of climate change.

Lower taxes on middle-class and working-poor families.

Medicare reform focused on reducing the unit price of health care services rather than increasing it.

More funding for transportation infrastructure and basic research.

Brooks says the Ryan budget has the following main advantages over the CPC budget:

High-income individuals will be less inclined to take vacations or retire and more inclined to work long hours.

In a world where trade-offs are, to an extent, unavoidable, I don't see that as an enormously difficult choice.

Word.

Incidentally, the Brooks column includes the following correction:

An earlier version of this column misstated the location of a statue in Washington that depicts a rambunctious horse being reined in by a muscular man. The sculpture, Michael Lantz’s “Man Controlling Trade” (1942), is outside the Federal Trade Commission, not the Department of Labor.

I'm looking forward to the following additional correction:

An earlier version of this column erroneously implied that Keynesian economics is uncertain, and also that it is inappropriate for the present. Keynesian economics is actually well confirmed, and the economy continues to suck so it is still pressingly relevant. It turns out my whole worldivew is just wrong. I regret the error.